God (Big Theology for Little Hearts – Devon and Jessica Provencher

God Big Theology Little Hearts
God by Devon Provencher, Jessica Provencher
Also by this author: Jesus, The Gospel
Published by Crossway Books on February 18, 2020
Genres: Children's, Children's Educational
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three-half-stars

Big Theology for Little Hearts
Each book in the Big Theology for Little Hearts series introduces a big idea from the Bible with concise definitions and engaging illustrations to help young minds gain a foundational understanding of God's word.
With each volume written to complement all the others, this series is designed to help children develop a cohesive framework of theology that includes God, creation, humanity, Jesus, and the gospel-allowing you to start having crucial conversations with your children as early as possible.

Big Theology for Little Hearts is a book series that believes you’re never too young to learn about our faith or the words we use to express it. Each book in the series focuses on one theme and several terms that Christians use about that theme. The goal is to explain in the simplest of words what these things mean. Written by Devon Provencher and illustrated by Jessica Robyn Provencher, Big Theology for Little Hearts is designed to engage even the youngest children in developing the language necessary to talk about our faith.

This volume of the series focuses on God, with the defined terms being:

  • Creator
  • King
  • Trinity
  • Holy
  • Eternal
  • Unchanging
  • Just
  • Good
  • Loving
  • Glory

Having read all three volumes in this series (the other two being The Gospel and Jesus) and been kind of harsh on both of them, it’s fairly obvious to me that that impetus for the series came from this book. Because here, with perhaps the exception of “glory,” the book does exactly what it says: provide simple definitions of theological terms.

The book is structured logically. You have the titles of God, attributes of God, and then “glory” which is our response to God. Most of the definitions are clear and precise. King: “God is the ruler over all things forever.” Just: “God will never let the guilty go unpunished.” You get into “good” and “loving” and it turns into declarations that God is these things, rather than a definition of what these things mean.

While it’s easily the best of the Big Theology for Little Hearts series, I hesitate to recommend it because of my misgivings about the other two books. Simply put, I think that more careful thought and planning needed to go into the word choice and making sure the definitions were actually definitions. This series had a lot of potential and did not live up to it.

three-half-stars